About Tony

Let’s see, about me. I’m 32, and live by myself in Indianapolis. I have no pets, and no real desire to have them at this time (three certain Boston Terriers aside.)

I was born in Tiffin, Ohio, at the same hospital that some former major league baseball player once had his kidney stones removed at or something like that, and lived with my family in Tiffin for 4 years. I still have alot of family there, though I only make it back for holidays, if that, anymore. Just before I turned 4, my parents decided that it would be a great idea to move an hour north to Toledo in the middle of the Blizzard of ’78. I don’t remember much, aside from riding in the moving van and snowdrifts higher than the cars, but I survived. A month later, I had a little brother. Over the next 25 years, I should have taken up more of those offers to sell him. Now he’s married and having little pups, so I think that takes any legal right I may have had to his soul away from me. Damn.

But enough about him. I graduated from high school in 1992, played soccer all four years, and really didn’t do much else. We had a teacher’s strike my senior year, and despite what adults may try to say, that was a really cool week. After high school, I went to Bowling Green State University (it’s in Ohio, not Kentucky), and studied telecommunications, mostly radio. But once I realized that radio jobs start off with 4 digit salaries in towns like, well, Tiffin, Ohio (and I didn’t even get that job!), I took my knowledge of television and turned it into a news editing job in Columbus.

I spent three or so years at the ABC/FOX affiliate in Columbus, mostly as a tape monkey for the first part of the time, but I moved up to a sports producer job, which was really cool, even if it did drive me nuts at times, trying to get 2 different shows done in 45 minutes. After that job, I spent a little time getting paid by Uncle Sam. (Four hundred bucks just for walking to the mailbox every two weeks!) That’s when I started turning my remedial web knowledge (from the days at BG, TCOM451…also titled “How to make a webpage with that really cheesy looking textured background, five different sizes of text in the same font, and as many crude, obnoxious animated graphics you could find.” Okay, so the course guide said something like “Intro to the World Wide Web” or “Web Design for Dummies, for Dummies”.) I used to still have a page online somewhere on the bgsu.edu server, but I don’t know where its at now. It was pretty comical to see that 8 years later.

Any-hoo, I turned my unemployed time into making a couple websites for people, for money, hocking cheesy wares and skin pics. Well, they were tastefully done, artistic skin pics, and actually, now that I have a set schedule and a little more knowledge, it would be interesting to get back at that project. Money was flowing, ideas were shared, and there were a few nice parties here and there, it just never panned out. I also began freelancing as a producer/editor/cable monkey (seriously, I’ve done plenty of jobs that could easily have the word ” monkey” added to the end) for a production company in Columbus. Good people there, and to this day, I don’t know what I’d have done without the opportunities they afforded me. I took a tech support job (a “phone monkey”, if you will), which was really rough, but I learned more about the way computers and the web work, and it paid the bills. Oh, and I learned how to, and had the power to, add people to local phone books. Behold my powers! Despite it all, I was awfully eager to leave when the CBS affiliate in Columbus where I had been freelancing picked me up full-time. (I believe my first day was a year ago today, as I typed this originally…) That’s all I can say about that, since certain people at work know about this site, and ever since I read about that Microsoft guy, I think I’ll keep those opinions to myself. I moved to Indianapolis in August 2004 to work for the NBC affiliate here, which is owned by the same company as my last station.

Well, I think that sums up my life. For anyone that can’t piece it together from the sordid bits and chunks on this site, I like to think that I have a “different” sense of humor, while not being so different that I’m on any FBI watch lists, or standing in line for the next Star Trek movie or something. I like a cold beer, a good cheesesteak sandwich, good times with close friends, and some really god-awful sports teams. Though as I almost realized two years ago with the Carolina Hurricanes (ed. note – as I DID realize with the Carolina Hurricanes 11 months ago tomorrow, but stayed clothed), if the Browns ever win a Super Bowl, I’m going to use up three years of sick time in a row, cause its gonna be a hell of a party, y’all!